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Posts Tagged ‘Halloween’

London Harry Potter Walks.

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Today we’ll be walking part of the Harry Potter Free London walks route to ensure that it is right up to date. For those of you who have not yet had the chance to take a look at this great free London resource a little information about it might be useful.

The ethos behind our London walks has always been that you should have the choice of joining us for one of our regular and scheduled tours of London for which we make a charge of around £7 or going out on your own and doing the tour of your choice in your own time and at your own pace.

An example of the latter is the period leading up to Halloween when we posted several mini ghost walks that you could print off and follow as and when, or even if, you desired. We are firm believers in giving you step by step directions that ensure you can find your way around the route.

What’s the point of telling you to go and sit in a cafe somewhere and read about the interesting places that are nearby? Our walkers would see through that ruse straight away! We will take you to the places step by step, which is exactly what our Harry Potter London walks are all about.

This free London Walking Tour is a print off 30 page PDF which you download, print off and then follow the step by step directions. You can dedicate an entire day to completing it, or else you can divide it up into several London walks and take these segments as and when you like.

It can be great fun as you will never know what you might come across as you walk the streets of London. One family, for example, even walked into the filming of the next Harry Potter film as they followed our route around Westminster and got to see Harry Potter himself - Daniel Radcliffe. How cool is that!

So if you would like to receive your free PDF tour just send us an email to

harry-potter-pdf@discovery-walks.com

and within seconds you will hear that little ping as, as if by magic, the fully Harry Potter London walk lands in your in box.

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London walks and Tours For November

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Well, Halloween is now over and a big thank you to all those who participated in the haunted London walks that we ran (or should that be walked!) on Saturday.

With November now upon us we thought we’d take the opportunity to outline the walks we will be offering throughout the month ahead.

Our Jack the Ripper tour of London will be going ahead 7 nights a week. There is even an anniversary night coming up on the 9th November with the anniversary of the murder of Mary Kelly who is thought to have been the last victim of Jack the Ripper.

Some of you may be aware that there was a Jack the Ripper conference in London the weekend before Halloween. We were the only one of the London walks companies to have expert speakers at the conference. Philip Hutchinson led a marathon London of Jack the Ripper Walk on the Sunday morning. Richard Jones gave a talk on Jack the Ripper and the spiritualists on the Sunday afternoon. Indeed, Colin Cobb who did an excellent job as the MC of the entire conference was moved to introduce Richard as the “New Labour” of the ripper world!

The conference ended with John Bennet showing his film “Ripperland.”

We were honoured to be the only one of the London walks companies to address this years conference and wish Colin every success with attracting the next conference to Belfast where Colin operates Titanic walking tours of the dockyard where Titanic was built.

In the course of his talk Richard mentioned that he was once told by a TV producer on his walks that there were three subjects that documentary makers were always willing to make programmes on. This three subjects?

Jack the Ripper, The Titanic and The Paranormal.

If someone could come up with a programme that included all three then, according to the producer, they would have commissioning editors falling over themselves to sign the rights.

Richard explained to the conference that since he covered two of these subjects (Jack the Ripper and the Paranormal) on his various London walks then this wasn’t too difficult.

He asked the delegates, if they knew his solution for getting the Titanic into the same programme. Richard had the solution and in our next blog we will reveal the connection between Jack the Ripper, The Titanic and The Paranormal!

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London Ghosts and Walks.

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Of all our London walks none is more popular than the Jack the Ripper Tour.

It being Halloween today for our haunted blog we thought we’d take a look at a ghost story that was linked to the Jack the Ripper murders.

At the time the following story was related at the inquest into the murder of Elizabeth Stride, the third victim of Jack the Ripper who was murdered in Berner Street, Commercial Road, in the early hours of 30th September 1888.

In the wake of Elizabeth Stride’s murder a lady by the name of Mary Malcolm contacted the police to say that she was convinced the murdered woman was in fact her sister Elizabeth Watts.

 Having veiwed the body at the mortuary twice she identified the deceased as her sister from a black mark on her leg which, she said, was the result of an adder bite she had received when they were children.

Mrs Malcolm duly appeared at the subsequent inquest and in the course of her testimony the Cotoner asked her about a “SPECIAL PRESENTIMENT” that she had received.

In hushed tones Mary Malcolm launched into a tale of the supernatural by informing the Coroners Court how she had been lying in bed at around 1.20am on the previous Sunday when she suddenly felt a pressure on her breast and heard three distinct kisses.

This made her, she said, sense that something had happened to her sister, Elizabeth Watts.

Consequently when she heard of the murder in Berner Street she contacted the police to tell them of her fears.

On our London walks about this subject we tell how The East London Advertiser on 6th October 1888 informed its readers that the time when Mary Malcolm heard the kisses was around the time that the Berner Street victim was meeting her death.

“Since” the article continued “it is probable that her killer betrayed his victim Judas like with a kiss” this would account for the three kisses that Mrs Malcolm heard.

The pressure on her breast, it explained, was consistent with where the murder would have placed his hand to steady himself as he leant over to slit her throat.

The newspaper went on to tell its readers how there were numerous records of people contacting their loved ones telepathically at times of great stress and this is what appeared to have happened in this case.

Mrs Malcolm went on to paint her sister in a very unflateering light accusing her late sibling of,among other things,adultery, bearing an illegitimate child by a police officer and even hinted that she was a prostitute.

She stcuk to her story even though the police and the Coroner made it quite clear that they didn’t believe it and that they thought the woman wasn’t her sister.

Her story was finally disporoved when her sister actually hobbled in to court very much alive and denounced Mary Malcolm for giving her such a bad character.

What Mary Malcolm’s motive was for persisting with her elaborate yarn is difficult to ascertain but her story of the dream certainly caught the public imagination.

To hear more about this fascinating tale why not join our Jack the Ripper London walks?

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The Ghosts Are Here - Haunted Walks in London

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Well, there’s just one day to go now and our Haunted London walks are cranking up and getting ready for Halloween - the scariest night of the year.

So where are the good places to go for walks in London and hope that you might see ghosts.

Well,  for a London walk that is gauranteed to chill the marrow, you could start with the Tower of London.

Why not head in there tomorrow and see if a resident spook stirs in the darker recesses and manifests before you?

The Tower of London has stood on the City’s eastern fringe for almost 1,000 years.

As we explain on our City of London walks, it was begun by William the Conqueror in 1078 since when its grim, imposing walls have well and truly dominated the London landscape and the pages of English history.

Over the next five hundred years it evolved into a magnificent Royal Palace, home to successive monarchs.

But it is its reputation as a place of imprisonment, torture and execution that brings people flocking to its history steeped interior and makes it such a popular inclusion on our various London walks in the City.

The long list of names who have, over the centuries, passed through its gates reads like a Who’s Who of English History.

 Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Guy Fawkes, Sir Walter Raleigh and many others spent their final days, months or even years locked up inside its thick walls.

The sufferring of their final days can only be guessed at since few of them left any written and it was often just the cold stone that bore silent witness to their torment.

So it probably isn’t that much of a surprise that the Tower of London has the reputation of being the capital’s, if not England’s Most Haunted building. 

So pay it a visit on Halloween, walk its battlements, shiver in its cells, and who knows, maybe a ghost or two will cross the veil and appear before you.

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Ghost Walks In London

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Tonight, Sunday 25th october 2009, the Woman in Black kicks off our week long haunted London walks ghost fest with a journey through the streets of the ghostly city.

Tonight’s tour, like all our London walks leading up to Halloween - such as The Jack the Ripper Tour, The Alleyways and Shadows Tour and the Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveyards Tour - has been sold out for many weeks now.

But those who booked early can look forward to a night exploring a corner of London that is a time capsule.

From the crumbling wall where the Black Dog of Newgate slithers its way into the realm of infamy, to the gas lit graveyard where the fearsome spectre of the She Wolf of France lurks. This tour has it all.

The route the Haunted London walk with the Woman in Black takes is guarenteed to be both nerve jangling and fascinating. There will be an old execution pot, a tumble down church yard where a lone monk keeps his weary vigil, not to mention the whistling wraith that haunted one of the City’s most esteemed buildings.

Of course, if you weren’t fortunate enough to get onto our Halloween London walks this year there’s always next year.

But with our free London walks you can also do your own ghost tour of London. From tomorrow we’ll be taking you on little jaunts through the streets of the old City and introducing you to the places where ghosts have been seen.

So be sure to check us out over the next few days and see what treasures of ghostly London we will introduce you to.

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Haunted Walks in London

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

It’s getting closer. Can you feel the chill in the air? Do you sense the feeling of trepidation as the veil between this world and the next gets thinner and thinner?

Yes, we’re seven days, one week away from the night of nights, Halloween, and on Monday we go into overdrive with our Haunted London walks ghost week.

Day by day we will tell you about haunted locations around London. Places you will be able to visit to get the real thrill of exploring the ghostly streets of the Most Haunted capital City in the World.

We’ll tell you about the perfect spot for Halloween. Suggest haunted pubs that you can visit to contact (and also drink!) the spirits.

Our Halloween week will also consist of several London walks that you will be able to do at your leisure.

You will also be able to purchase copies of Richard Jone’s ultimate guide to the ghostly Metropolis Walking Haunted London.

So get out the winter wear ( have you noticed it has begun to get colder with each day that passes?), put on your sturdy and faithful walking shoes or boots. Be sure to buy yourself a clove or two of garlic.

And then prepare to abandon all hope as you set of into the streets where the ghosts of London have been seen.

We can’t gaurantee that you will actually see a ghost, because, of course, no-one can gaurantee that. What we can gaurantee is that we will get you to the places where ghost have been seen in London.

Our Walks will include plaque pits and graveyards, haunted houses and even haunted hotels. So be sure to join us from tomorrow when the capital’s premier Haunted London walks pull out all the stops and take you on a week long extravaganza into the darker recesses of the ghostly City.

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Haunted Britain - a break from London.

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

As promised yesterday our haunted London walks, will over the next few weeks be telling you about the haunted places in London that you can visit to enjoy Halloween.

Richard Jones, who is widely acknowledged as London’s best Ghost Walk Guide, is currently hard at work on his new book Haunted Britain, which is due for publication on Halloween 2010.

This will be Richard’s 17th book on the Ghosts of Britain and he has travelled the length and breadth of this spectred Isle researching and collecting ghost stories.

Anyway, the new book is going to be collection of brand new true ghost stories and venues, some of which have never found their way into print before.

Each of the chapters of the new book on Haunted Britain will open with a particularly atmospheric poem to set the mood.

Halloween Poems.

Poetry is a great inclusion in a ghost story telling session and it really can enhance the spookiness of Halloween.

Richard’s first book on Haunted Britain and Ireland opened with a poem he often uses to begin his Haunted London walks with.

He wrote this poem whilst sitting on the windswept ramparts of an old haunted castle in 1999. It is entitled hauntings.

Hauntings.

By Richard Jones.

1

In screaming woods and empty rooms.

Or gloomy vaults and sunken tombs.

Where monks and nuns in dust decay.

And shadows dance at close of day.

2

Where the bat dips on the wing.

And spectral choirs on breezes sing.

Where swords of ancient battles clash.

And shimmering shades for freedom dash.

3

Where silver webs of spiders weave.

And blighted lovers take their leave.

Where curses lay the spirits low.

And mortal footsteps fear to go.

4

Where death holds life in grim embrace.

It’s lines etched on the sinner’s face.

Where e’er the march of time is flaunted.

Voices cry “This place is haunted.”

Copyright 199 - 2009. Richard Jones.

We’ll bring you a few more ghostly poems in the run up to Halloween, but in the meantime why not check out all the different London walks and ghost walks that we offer?


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Our London Ghost Walks - They’re Spooky.

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

The clock is ticking, the nights on our haunted London walks are getting darker, step by step we are edging closer and closer to our annual Halloween Ghost Walk and we’d like to announce that from 24th October 2009 our blog is going to be dedicated to the ghosts of London.

Our Halloween London Ghost Walk is now fully booked, indeed our haunted tours for the rest of October are now completely sold out.

But that doesn’t mean that you won’t able to be benefit from the expertise of Richard Jones who is acknowledged as the best ghost walk guide in London.

Richard is currently working as a consultant for Visit London, and for the last few weeks has been helping them in putting together a press campaign to highlight the huge variety of haunted places that are to be found across London.

Walks, of course, make a great way to hunt for the ghosts of London. On a bus you’re behind glass, there is a barrier between you and the places you are looking at.

On a haunted London walk  you are there standing on a haunted spot, taking in the energy and the atmosphere of a haunted building.

No other guide in London has the expertise and the experience to help you get to know and visit the haunted places of London.

So our blogs leading up to the Halloween London ghost walk will consist of the best places in London to search for ghosts at.

We’ll send you to some creepy old graveyards, suggest haunted houses that you might like to visit.

We’ll even recommend hotels where you will be able to enjoy a decent nights unrest in a haunted bedroom!

So keep visiting our blog for the very best that Haunted London has to offer. Take a look at our Haunted London walks and prepare to discover the London where a legion of lost souls have been just dying to meet you.

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